feel that, again, I strongly support that a new section or a new set of regulations be written for education.

I think education is the heart of Indian self-determination because that is where it starts in the schools, in the home. This is one of the reasons why I hope that this subcommittee will take an opportunity and really look over these regulations, sir. Thank you.

Senator ABOUREZK. Thank you. I must remind you that what we will do is come out with a committee report which will discuss the recommendations and perhaps make what we hope to be final recommendations and if we can't get the intention of the BIA and IHS on an IHS level, we will have to try some other way. Please continue.

STATEMENT OF LINDA HADLEY, ROUGH ROCK DEMONSTRATION SCHOOL, MANY FARMS, ARIZ., COALITION OF INDIAN CONTROLLED SCHOOL BOARDS

Ms. HADLEY. My name is Linda Hadley. I am from Rough Rock. Rough Rock has been in existence the last 10 years. Mr. Chairman and staff and friends and visitors.

I have come before you that we run our own school and yet we don't administer self-determination. We have to follow orders from BIA. The new regulations that were sent out doesn't have anything to do with the contract school, we are excluded. There needs to be a time limit, there needs to be a modification. There has to be an authority in an area office so that progress made in the last 10 years, we have K to 12, that's the school we represent and the communities themselves look at the school. We have on teacher, one teacher aide and one parent aide in each classroom. They are taught Navajo and then English from the sixth grade on.

I have met a lot of people across the Nation and ran into a lot of the people. A lot of them, perhaps yourself, Mr. Abourezk, have lost their language and yet they want to stay with their culture. There is a need for culture and a language. That is why we need an education from K to 12. With the new regulation that is set, like you are saying in the act here, start with the school through agency level, tribal council in the area. But when we go to negotiating, a lot of times we have to be sitting there and not have anything resolved.

We have to go back and forth. By July 1, we will be operating on no money, just a letter of intent. So we are here to discuss this and hopefully, a lot of these changes be made to suit our minds for the benefit of our own people across the Nation. It is for our grandchildren that we want all of this education to start and bureaucracy to stay a little behind and let the Indian do the work. Thank you.

Senator ABOUREZK. Thank you. That was a good statement but I might remind you that we don't have enough money for things like that because we are busy buying the desert over in the Middle East and and we have to spend most of our money on that.

STATEMENT OF GREG TURGEON, ROSEBUD, S. DAK., COALITION OF INDIAN CONTROLLED SCHOOL BOARDS

Mr. TURGEON. Ladies and gentlemen, I am Greg Turgeon. I am a delegate of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Rosebud, S. Dak. I am appear

ing with the Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards because although the tribe attempted to secure an opportunity to appear here and offer testimony, we were unable to do so. Mr. Sahmaunt and Adam Bordeaux consented to allow me time today.

I represent the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Council, the Education Committee of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe composed of five tribal council members. Ten different local Indian education meetings concerned with the Johnson-O'Malley funds right now in six different school districts in the State of South Dakota. How much time do we have left-2 minutes?

I would just like to say that a lot of the things that have been said here today by the groups that have appeared are shared in common. with the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. I would also like to say that today you will hear from various people perhaps from the State of South Dakota who may be offering testimony which is not necessarily in accordance with the position held by the tribe and which, in fact, might be directly antithetical to that position.

I would also like to say that any recommendations which you hear which are based on primary consideration of the rights and responsibilities of the school boards of the public schools will, although with good intentions be, of course, damaging to any attempts to increase representation on the part of the Indian education committees.

The recommendations which are submitted as testimony in the form of a letter to Mr. Forrest Gerard, those recommendations are based on two premises by and large.

One: Give the Indian education committees some positive, put some teeth into their power, don't just relegate them to advisory boards. Two: Give the tribal governing bodies in accordance with the law, the spirit intent and language of Public Law 93-638, give those bodies some discretion wherever possible and allow them an option. Three, aside from the major two, in our case where the regulations governing Indian majority school boards are concerned, it would cut our representation from 10 boards down to 6 boards. There can only be one school board for each school district. Presently, we have five different boards operating through several different schools, each concerned with one school or a group of schools.

If you are going to write regulations that are in accordance with the professed intentions of the act, how can you write a regulation that is going to end up ultimately in reducing Indian representation?

Senator ABOUREZK. Thank you very much. I would like to thank this panel very much.

[The prepared statements of witnesses from the Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards follow:]

Mr. Chairman,

The Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards President, Mr. Birgil Kills Straight and the Board of Directors thank you for this opportunity to provide the following testimony regarding the proposed draft regulations of the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs on Public Law 93-638 entitled "The Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act".

It is also our pleasure to present this testimony in behalf of the Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards' membership and other concerned educators as shown on the enclosed list.

The Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards presents this testimony with strong feelings of ambivalencey regarding the reconciliation of what is self-determination and tribal sovereignty to what we view simply as authorization for the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs to contract with American Indian Tribes and Tribal Organizations to operate programs and services for themselves, which heretofore were administered for them by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The rhetoric thrown out to American Indian people called self-determination and tribal sovereignty from those whose responsibility to implement the law or who strongly desire to see the law implemented should be stricken from the language of the law and the regulations, or defined properly. Contracting to operate services by American Indian Tribes, or Tribal Organizations may eventually contribut to self-determination or tribal sovereignty, but until evidence is available which substantiates such a happening the Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards prefers to view this Act simply as the transference of programs and service management from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Public Health Service to tribal governments or tribal organizations,

The heart of our ambivalence has its basis upon whether or not this new direction in Indian relations will produce what American Indians call self-determination or is it going to increase Bureau of Indian Affairs control over the self government of American Indian Tribes. Placing contracting control in the hands of tribal governments gives the Bureua of Indian Affairs substantial power to dictate the pace and scope of selfdetermination. Given the BIA's continuing supervisory functions over tribal affairs (even for example, to the extent of approving tribal contracts with attorneys) and given its informal influence with many tribal governing bodies, the approach taken in the regulations cannot help but give the BIA extensive power to initiate or stifle self-determination efforts.

The Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards maintains this attitude because we represent an element of the American Indian population whose initiative to control educational programs and to operate schools stemmed not from their tribal governments or from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but who gained control and exercised self-determination in education as an American Indian community despite the lack of support from tribal governments and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It has been the experience of the CICSB and many of those whom we represent that education is not a high priority and that few, if any, of the community controlled or contract schools presently existing developed from initiative exerted by tribal governemtns.

The CICSB feels that the BIA's major fault in the regulations is to have extended P.L. 93-638 in so far as tribal governmental involvement is concerned beyond the intention of Congress. There is no question that Congress, in